


Failure Value

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: 3+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Companion Piece, Developing Friendships, Gen, Post-Tower of Hanoi Arc, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 11:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15072641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: Zaizen Aoi meets Kogami Ryoken three times, and with each conversation, a little something falls away. And she’s not sure, but she thinks a little something might be growing to take its place.They’re all seeking tomorrow, after all.(Or: Three conversations Aoi has with Ryoken, and one she has with Spectre.)[Companion piece toIt was a beautiful future.]





	Failure Value

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion fic to [It was a beautiful future.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13936737/chapters/32081175) and the context of these scenes will probably make very little sense without it! It's meant to be read between chapters nine and ten!
> 
> To summarize it simply though: post season 1 au, Aoi and Yusaku are friends, Spectre is at their high school and Aoi is Not Happy about it, and Yusaku convinced Ryoken to stay around Den City a while instead of taking a boat into the sunset.

1. 

Blue Angel didn’t head into LINK VRAINS looking for a fight- but admittedly, she thought, staring into the shadows of the rooftop garden, not even pretending to be unaware of the gaze on her back- this was a fight she might not be so opposed to.

“Come out,” Aoi demanded, “or I’ll make you.”

She had no patience for hackers, and even less for those that had victimized her personally. She’d closed that chapter of her life when she’d dueled Vyra and won, when she’d ensured that no one else would ever be consumed by the same darkness as she had- or so she’d thought, at least. In the end she’d still fallen, and so had most everyone else, dominoes powerless against gravity.

Revolver’s avatar was different than it was in the days of the Knights of Hanoi, for obvious reasons- perhaps the only figure more wanted in the network than Playmaker was Revolver. Still, it was obvious who he was. If his aim had been to cast off his identity entirely, Aoi thought, he’d done a rather poor job of it. The only change of note was the lightened mask that let her meet his eyes. They were a cool blue, almost metallic. Aoi had expected a molten gold, or at least a hazel, but that was the least of her worries. “Why are you here?”

Revolver lifted his hands, a show of goodwill as he stepped from the shadows. Not that it meant much- all Aoi had was Yusaku’s word that their common enemy was enough to keep him from threatening the world again, from undoing everything they’d worked so hard to save. “Tracking the enemy. They were headed this direction.”

Aoi wasn’t entirely sure if she believed him or not. After he’d gone and nearly collapsed the network, she’d seen no reason for him to come back to try and defend it. Certainly Yusaku tended to keep well clear- but perhaps it was penance. Perhaps he had something to prove.

Aoi didn’t know, and she wasn’t fond of guessing unless she was sure she’d be right; unless she wanted to duel the truth out of him here and now, the she’d have to settle for his word.

Regardless, it seemed she’d missed her chance- a data storm began to roar through the scenery, untamed and fierce. Aoi didn’t know if it was at his command or at that of their enemies, but all that meant was she’d have a chance at a duel that mattered, today.

“You take that one,” Revolver said, inclining his head towards the storm, whose paths began to branch around the skyscraper they were perched atop, “And I’ll take that one.”

The enemy came in twos; like this Aoi had no reason to decline.

“Fine,” she said, and leapt into the action, D-board materializing beneath her feet. She called bright for the spotlight with a practiced smile, waving to the crowds below and on the other side of the screen determined of her victory. That she drew the cameras and reporters away from Revolver was only a side effect- she needed to prove now that what she did wasn’t only for her own sake. She needed to prove that when she fought, she wouldn’t let her failures stop her in her tracks.

Onwards, further, until she’d become the best person she could be, until she’d become the ideal self she’d imagined when she’d first created Blue Angel what felt like an eternity ago-

Until Blue Angel, still crying tears blue as the summertime sky, could finally lift her head and laugh from the bottom of her heart.

 

2.

There was someone standing outside the school gates. She hadn’t seen this person before, though she thought she might have heard a passing rumor or two about him in the halls a few times before. She glanced up at them, and their eyes didn’t quite meet before she glanced back away, pretending that she’d never looked at all.

But internally, Aoi hesitated. She knew those eyes- remembered them because they’d surprised her. They were just eyes, Aoi told herself. In LINK VRAINS, anyone could by anything and appearance meant nothing- but in all her experience it was hard to shake the idea that an avatar cut to the truth of a person in one way or another.

Aoi was Blue Angel, a symbol of hope and dreams and strength she had wanted so desperately to grasp. Yusaku was Playmaker- a cut of himself, dyed in a different color than the everyday life he spent so long struggling to find. And Revolver was… a weapon, formerly faceless.

Aoi frowned, but didn’t falter.

It was hardly any of her business. If _Spectre_ was here, playing at normality, then it made sense that Revolver might follow. Yusaku had explained in the barest of details- Spectre, a child who had gone back, and Revolver, the boy who had been there to give him a place to belong.

She’d be lying to say that she had no interest, but given that the interest wasn’t entirely born of goodwill, she chose to keep walking. Or she would have, if she hadn’t gotten distracted a moment.

Aoi’s phone vibrated, and she paused to take it from her pocket and check the notification- Akira, confirming that he’d be home in time for dinner again. Aoi’s lips curled up into a small smile. Akira had been stuck working overtime, as of late, and while she couldn’t say she liked it much, she could understand. Their relationship was rebuilding, making up for all the time they’d lost to passing each other by in the same, empty home. No longer did she feel as if Akira saw her only as a burden to support. Their family wouldn’t crumble so easily again.

The stranger used that moment of hesitation to call out- “Excuse me. Have you seen-“

And Aoi knew that voice, too. Her intuition had already been right once, and she wouldn’t hesitate on another chance. She interrupted, already knowing whose name he was going to say, “Kogami Ryoken?”

He blinked down at her. “Yes?”

Aoi paused to look him over. He was about her age, probably a bit older. In casual clothes there was an aloof aura about him- a sense that he didn’t belong amongst the students pouring out from the school gates despite them being peers. Aoi knew that aura all too well- she’d worn it herself for years, now.

“And you’re looking for-”

“Yes.” Ryoken nodded, a slight bit too quickly. Aoi narrowed her eyes up at him- neither of them would pretend they didn’t know exactly who the other was, nor what they’d been through, what they’d done.

 _Though,_ thought Aoi, her side of the story still had an uncomfortable amount of holes. She said, voicing none of that, “We’re in different classes. But Yusaku would know.”

“They get along?” Ryoken asked, and Aoi almost had to roll her eyes. That was an understatement. How Yusaku could ever get along with Spectre, knowing what kind of person he was, Aoi couldn’t possibly understand.

(And she wouldn’t- Yusaku wasn’t the first friend that she’d ever made, but he was certainly the only one that remained. She wouldn’t, because anything that resembled _normal_ for him was probably a dream he’d been longing for a decade. But if she were to put it to an ultimatum- _him or me-_ the part of her that watched the two of them out of the corner of her eye with lingering unease told her that was a gamble she wouldn’t win.)

“They seem like good friends,” she replied, which said it all in a way that didn’t send a flash of irritation through her at the reminder of all the things Yusaku seemed to be forgiving him for.

Ryoken didn’t relax, exactly- but he rolled his shoulders back and shifted on his feet, and something about him seemed just a little more genuine than it had before, like casting a burden off his shoulders. “That’s good.”

Aoi shrugged and replied, nonchalant, “I suppose.”

Ryoken seemed as if he had something he wanted to say to that- not another question, Aoi hoped- but then Yusaku was beside them, barging awkwardly into their conversation, and his chance was gone.

Still, Aoi thought, long after Ryoken and Spectre had gone and Yusaku had asked his favor of her, walking alone down the streets of Den City as she wove her way home, she wondered what he’d been about to say.

(Angels and dreams and weapons and tears, a wanted man lingering around LINK VRAINS and school gates when he could easily have been a student- Aoi didn’t know, but still she wondered.)

  


2.5

Spectre had suggested they’d take a walk. In reality, that amounted to silently pacing the halls of the empty rear building without destination, weaving their way up and up- not, Aoi hoped, setting themselves up for a fall.

They met their end at the very top of the stairwell. The door to the roof was sealed off, but there were a few spare desks and chairs spread across the landing, a thick layer of dust coating them all. Aoi imagined they’d been placed there by students sneaking about for secret meetings in the abandoned old building- not dissimilar to what they were doing now.

Aoi brushed the dust off one of the desks and sat atop it, perched at its edge. Spectre stood before her, back to the stairs. Now that they’d let negotiations fade into silence, it seemed that neither of them quite knew how to pick them back up again.

“An apology and a duel,” Spectre said, finally. “I believe I can start with at least one of those.”

Aoi didn’t wave her hand in a dramatic sweep and mockingly tell him to _go ahead,_ though the desire was definitely there. That wasn’t what she was here for- starting fights without reason was an pointless endeavor in which she wouldn’t indulge. Not when it would only give Spectre more ammunition against her, at least.

Instead she stared at him expectant, and after a breath, Spectre began, “I am.. Sorry. Fujiki informed me that I’d gone too far, many times over. So I apologize. Truly.”

“And?” Aoi said. Spectre’s gaze on her turned sharp- clearly he didn’t know what else she was asking for. “If Yusaku is just making you say this, then it means nothing to me. You either walked into that room intending to talk to me or _really_ thought that Yusaku would be there to meet you, and you’re not an idiot.”

She had plenty of choice words for Spectre, but _idiot_ was never one of them. Across from her, Spectre let out another long breath. For someone who wore no masks, Aoi thought, trying to pry what he really meant from him was a test of her patience at best.

“At the time,” Spectre said, “I cared only about protecting Revolver. You and Fujiki meant nothing to me, other than spirits to crush before the end. If you were going to challenge my place in the world, then I would gladly tear yours apart. But now… Tell me. If I hadn’t done that, could we have been friends?”

Aoi blinked at the word, startled by the question. Could they have been? If he’d defeated her, but stopped short of burning up her dreams, had never forced Akira into giving up his life to save the world, no matter how temporary the fall- would she have hated him any less?

It wasn’t the world they were living in. Aoi didn’t know.

Given the way they’d been content to ignore each other at every given opportunity, she hadn’t been aware that was something he’d even been _considering._

Spectre didn’t wait for her answer- perhaps he’d judged her silence and come up with an answer she didn’t have- or perhaps he didn’t have one either. She didn’t have the chance to ask. He simply continued- “I regret it. If you really were fighting me as yourself, and not only as _Blue Angel,_ then I apologize. I’d assumed that you were shallow. That you couldn’t possibly understand Blue Angel’s loneliness when you clearly had people who would leap to save you. But that isn’t the truth, is it? So. A final time. I’m sorry.”

And there it was- out in the open, not a trace of patronizing ire left between them. For some reason, Aoi thought, finally hearing it wasn’t as satisfying as she’d imagined it being.

“Thank you. But I can’t…” Aoi paused, shook her head. When she continued, she chose her words with much more purpose. “No. I won’t forgive you.”

Spectre regarded her with something that didn’t quite dare to be amusement- whatever stunt Yusaku had pulled, it meant even he wouldn’t be so haughty while asking forgiveness. “Isn’t that a bit stubborn of you?”

“Maybe it is,” said Aoi with a shrug, “but that’s the truth. I’ve been thinking a lot since then, and that’s what I’ve decided on.”

Spectre didn’t protest. “Regardless. I suppose I haven’t done anything to earn it, have I? If that’s what worries you, then I don’t think you’ll find yourself forgiving me any time soon.”

Now that, Aoi thought, was said with something like bitter amusement. But it wasn’t directed at her.

“That’s not what I mean either,” she said, and Spectre shot her a probing glance.

“Then please, do enlighten me. What _do_ you mean?”

Aoi shook her head. It was difficult to explain, but if she couldn’t force herself to put it into words now, then there would be no point to it. “Sometimes, you just forgive people. You don’t decide to, and you don’t even know if you _want_ to. You just… realize that it doesn’t hurt the same way it used to. And I can’t let that happen. Not about this.”

Spectre didn’t laugh at her, but she wouldn’t call his look _charitable._ Mostly, he seemed to want to be done with this conversation. “That’s quite stubborn of you. But reasonable. Then, the duel..?”

“Another time,” said Aoi, and pushed herself graceful off the desk. This had been more than enough for one day- ideally, she’d just like to go home and sleep until Akira arrived- or spoil her dinner with chips while watching LINK VRAINS coverage.

Spectre nodded, and she brushed past him to head down the stairs, but halfway to the first landing, she realized that he wasn’t following. She paused, turned her head back, and said over her shoulder, “Are you coming?”

Again did Spectre nod, pacing the steps careful down towards her side. Together they wove down the flights of them, out through the grounds, parting ways at the gates without a wave goodbye or a promise to meet again- things hadn’t settled that far, not yet.Today wasn’t the day she fought for Spectre’s sake.

But one day, Aoi thought, far enough away- not the start of a new book, but at the start of a new chapter, perhaps-

Perhaps.

  


3.

They were trapped in every sense- rats in a cage, unable to log out and unable to leave the strange altered space they’d found themselves in. A digital sea raged on their right, and a wasteland of toppled skyscrapers crumbling down to ash awaited on their left.

Aoi sighed and looked at the one bright side to all this- at least she hadn’t been trapped here with Spectre.

“We should start looking for a way out,” Ryoken said, and Aoi nodded. She wouldn’t protest that- not when it was him that had leapt to cover her when that program had almost swallowed them whole. He started down towards the shoreline, following it without getting too close- Aoi didn’t know what would happen if they fell into the swirling data there, and she didn’t want to. She stayed close behind, keeping a keen eye on the break of the waves, on the hands that seemed to reach out from it a desperate moment before dissolving down into pieces of data to join the sea once more. It was a scene out of a nightmare; Aoi hoped dearly that Akira had lost visuals for the time being.

“My brother is going to panic again,” Aoi muttered under her breath. She hadn’t meant to say it at all, really, but it slipped from her in her desperate wish he didn’t do something rash, as he always did.

“Your brother-“ Ryoken said, oddly sharp, and Aoi frowned. She had no idea what Ryoken could have possibly had against him, other than some sort of strange grudge against SOL, given the way they’d presumably split with Hanoi after the Lost Incident. At this point, the last thing she wanted to remember was how she was trapped in a dying world with someone who had toyed with not just the network, but with her and Akira.

“If this is about SOL and the Ignises,” Aoi said, following him down another gentle slope, not quite pretty enough to be called a _beach,_ “then that’s not something you have to worry about. My brother isn’t going to sell you out.”

“That’s not the issue,” Ryoken snapped back, not _quite_ aggressive but certainly not amicable, either. Aoi did wish that she wasn’t staring straight at his back- it would have made reading him a little bit easier. That was, provided he hadn’t upped the opaqueness on his mask again.

“Then what _is_ the issue? I don’t know.”

For a long while, Ryoken said nothing. They continued to pick and weave their way down the shoreline, watching their footing careful, skirting around the half-formed monsters that cried out hollow before they fell back to shreds of data again, whisked away by a desolate wind.

Then, finally- “Would you like to?”

“Huh?” Aoi lifted her head, having given up on a response, but Ryoken still wasn’t looking back at her.

“Know the details. Of the other side.”

There was only one thing that could mean. The holes in the story, the gaps in his motivation. The reason, perhaps, that he’d named himself after a weapon and hadn’t seen fit to change it five years down the line, even after Hanoi had fallen.

“Why would you tell me?” Aoi asked. Even if she wouldn’t quite align herself with SOL as an entity, and even if he hadn’t quite gone and taken up some sort of revenge quest the same as Yusaku had just finished, she wouldn’t consider herself the obvious choice.

Ryoken said, still to the uneven road ahead of them, “Yusaku recommended I talk about it.”

 _Of course,_ Aoi thought, not quite exasperated but certainly thinking she should have expected that. Yusaku seemed to think that the answer to everything was talking about it, a stubborn counterpoint to the world that wanted to settle matters of worth with a duel, same as the one she’d asked of Spectre.

But, Aoi amended, thinking about how much time she might have saved if she’d only just found a way to speak to Akira, rather than chasing _Blue Angel_ all the way to the top of LINK VRAINS, perhaps that wasn’t so bad, in the end.

“If you tell me,” Aoi said, “then I’ll listen.”

Ryoken waited a moment, until the both of them were on flat ground. “After I reported the Incident, SOL put my father into a coma with a virus.”

Aoi sucked in an involuntary breath. That hadn’t been what she’d expected to hear. She didn’t know- _couldn’t know_ \- but even in her faint early memories, she remembered what it had felt like to lose her parents.

Ryoken continued, without giving her time to comment, “We- the Knights and I- rebuilt his consciousness in the network. He created the Knights of Hanoi and guided our actions. And he sacrificed himself to give me the strength to win against Playmaker.”

Ryoken stopped in his tracks to stare out at the raging sea. He didn’t need to elaborate on what had happened; even though Aoi hadn’t been present, the results were obvious enough. “And I failed him.”

Aoi stopped beside him and shrugged. “I failed, too.”

“That isn’t the same,” Ryoken said, and Aoi felt vaguely as if she was about to start an argument with Spectre all over again. Equivalencies, trying to measure pain against pain- it was all nonsense. She wished that any of them had realized that earlier.

“No,” she said, “it’s not. But it’s about what you do now that you’ve failed, not about the fact that you did.”

“I’m not convinced you understand this,” Ryoken said, not looking at her, “but I spent my entire life trying to make up for what I did back then. For betraying my father. I spent every turn of our plan failing him, and at the end he still called me-”

“You know,” said Aoi, because she was tired, and frustrated, and because something about the soft turn of Ryoken’s voice was too familiar, “Did your father ever once protest you turning yourself into a weapon?”

Ryoken blinked, and his glance at her betrayed his surprise. Clearly he hadn’t expected her to be so blunt. He was used to the fleeting glimpses he caught of her persona, obviously. But Aoi wasn’t that person, anymore.

“He wasn’t…”

Aoi continued, “When my brother figured out how lonely I was? He started coming home earlier. We talked about things again. Dumb things. Just our everyday lives and mundane stuff, but we _meant_ it. When your father realized you were lonely, what did he do?”

Ryoken didn’t say a word. He pretended to look up ahead, scouting down the great expanse of emptiness broken only by the occasional chimera failing to form, but Aoi knew better. If she had to guess, he was probably resisting the urge to reach up and set his mask as dark as it could go.

“And even though I can handle myself, and accept responsibility for my choices, his first instinct was still to try and protect me from harm. Did your father ever try and stop you from any of what you did? To take responsibility for himself for what he started?”

“What’s the point of this? I have no respect for people who try to drag a dead man’s name through the mud.” Ryoken’s tone wasn’t quite sharp enough to end the conversation, but she was toeing a line that wouldn’t have pleasant consequences if she dared cross it.

Aoi sighed and drew back. Her avatar’s bangs never fell into disarray, but she brushed them back anyway. “I’m saying that you give good advice. You should try and follow it. You’re not the only one of us who’s thought they might not have a future.”

“Good advice?” asked Ryoken, in the tone of voice that implied he knew full well he’d never given her one bit of advice in his life.

“Advice might not be the right word for it,” Aoi conceded, “but Yusaku told me. Not in a lot of detail, but you saved him during that Incident, didn’t you? And he spent a decade trying to save you.”

And Aoi was a little convinced that Yusaku would try and reach out a hand to anyone, at this point, but that didn’t change the strength of his conviction. She’d closed the chapter of her life where Hanoi had caused her pain. That wasn’t to say that the effects were gone- but only to say that she’d decided to face the future, stronger than her stumbling blocks.

“He did try,” Ryoken replied, but said nothing of his success. Aoi supposed that was obvious, too.

“You didn’t run. You’re not denying what you did. You still feel guilty that you failed, even if it saved the world, don’t you?” Ryoken didn’t answer, but Aoi pressed on regardless- “”So what are you going to do from now on?”

Aoi had fallen, and failed, and been reborn again. She’d decided- if _Blue Angel_ hadn’t been able to fight for everyone’s sake, in the end- if she’d been born just out of Aoi’s desire to regain some semblance of relationship with her brother, then she’d take on a new name. A new appearance.

And she was here, now, fighting on strong.

She didn’t know- she couldn’t. But from what little she understood, she didn’t see why _Kogami Ryoken_ couldn’t do the same.

“Right now?” Ryoken answered, then turned away from her, towards what he’d decided on as their destination. There was a bridge looming up over the horizon. If Yusaku and Spectre had found themselves on the other side of this digital sea, then surely they’d be making for it, too.

“For now,” he continued, “let’s find the others.”

He set out, and Aoi nodded, keeping pace with his long strides. She echoed, knowing not if this connection would last, knowing not if they’d speak of this again if it did, but oddly hopeful nonetheless- “Then let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> I talk a lot about the Yusaku/Spectre parallels but the parallels between Aoi and Ryoken are just super fascinating as well, especially post season 1. I really hope when Ryoken comes back that they get at least once scene together ;;


End file.
